Super Henshin Legend

"Super Henshin Legend? What is this?", you ask. I will tell you.
Super Henshin Legend is a simple, silly homebrew. You will join it, you will post and you will have fun, unless maybe you're one of those boring people who would rather avoid doing the things cool people would clearly want to do. You know, one of those bad forum goers WHO WILL BE DESTROYED.

"No, seriously", you ask, "What is Super Henshin Legend? It's sounds aweful."
Well, it's super because it's over the top and because I say so. It's... henshin-y? because you can transform by yelling some variation on "HENSHIN!". It's a legend because you play great heroes (or at least something around that level of power) in an epic tale that the bards will sing of for generations, unless you fuck up and they're all dead.

The setting is an almost traditional fantasy world. Things are grim, there's a lot of grey and black about, the nights are long, storms are outrageously common and blood is really, really bright red.
Normal people die all the time, like flies. Mostly they're covered in dirt and live in small, pre industrial towns. Armour and crossbows are in fashion, inquisitors make sure everybody behaves and follows the edicts of The Living Prophet Bartholimus, Seventh Emperor of All The World and everyone else gets on with drinking pints of thick ale and doing proper jobs.

There's a war on. A war against the Forces of Darkness, or at least a few other countries. There are monsters about. Some of these are wild creatures that ravage villages and eat children out of their beds in the night. Some of them are trained to attack by the enemy. Some infiltrate human society and sow discord for the sheer hell of it. If there are any monsters with a human-like outlook on life, who just want the inquistion to leave them to their beer and whores, they are wisely keeping their heads down.

Your town, Shepham is under attack by the enemy. First, the dreaded orcs, with their leathery black skin, bad posture and piss poor beer stormed the gates and began rampaging through the streets, eating children, dragging away women and slaying men. Then great burning rocks plunged out of the night sky, dropped by flying machines. By the morning, nothing will be left but wreckage.
Oh no, wait. I promised legendary superheroes who can transform, didn't I?

Zol, the father of all and master of the true prophet and the empire of all things in this world and beyond sees fit to grant his people powers both great and terrible, to insure their victory over the forces of evil. Zol is an idiot. That's why everything's in such a mess. Zol picked you. Maybe it was your endearing enthusiasm. Maybe the sheer wrongness of making you into a supernatural champion was too funny to pass up. It's probably not because of your ability to help people. Zol's mysterious like that.

You are a person. You are somewhere in Shepham in the middle of the night, in a storm, in a battle. Who are you, and what are you doing?

People have traits. Specifically, they have:

A concept trait, which might be Drug Addled Nobleman, Half Orc Hobo, Sociopathic Snake Oil Salesman or any number of other things.

3 attribute traits, chosen from the following list

Fit- your are strong, agile and tough
Smart- You are intelligent and quick witted, and you don't give up easily
Social- You are charismatic, composed and, when you have to be, a skilful manipulator
Powerful- Whatever you do, you do it hard. You have brain power, muscle power and sheer force of personality
Resilient- You are very hard to stop. You have stamina and willpower in ample amounts
Tricky- You have dexterous fingers and a silver tongue. You think fast too.

1 Bad attribute trait from this list

Unfit- Opposite of fit
Dumb- Opposite of smart
Antisocial- Opposite of social
Weak- Opposite of powerful
Frail- Opposite of resilient
Simple- Opposite of tricky

3 Skill traits, like Sports, Melee Combat, Occult Knowledge, Stealth or Lies.

1 Specialisation trait, like Slitting People's Throats Before They Know I'm There, Poking People in The Eye, Impersonating an Inquisitor or Convincing People Not To Hit Me.

1 Vice trait, chosen from the WoD vices (envy, gluttony, wrath, sloth, greed, lust and pride)

3 Awesome Power traits, which only work when you have transformed, such as Lightening Breath, Contact Telekinesis or Turn Into A Huge Fucking Giant

1 Achilles' heel trait, such as Repelled By Animals, Hurt By The Sound Of Bells, Die If I Eat Chicken, Die If Attacked In The Heel, or Helpless Against Children


Once you have picked those, written a brief description of your character and the form he adopts (anything from a magic costume to becoming a fish) and answered any questions I have, you should be ready to go.


"Great", you say, "but how does it actually work?" Well, I'll be rolling all the dice. I roll a d20 and if it's high, that's good, if it's low, that's bad, if it's really high or low that's really good or bad and if it's in the middle that's pretty meh. For every good trait you have and every factor making things easier for you, I add a die. For every bad trait and circumstance, I subtract. With more than one die, I use the best one. With less than one die, I roll multiple dice and take the worst. Powers and Achilles' heals are a little different, because they sometimes allow you to attempt something you couldn't normally do at all instead of giving you an additional die.
The injury system is pretty rough. Essentially, I intend to wing it. There is no hp, but each injury will limit you and some things will kill you. You are unlikely to die of an arrow, because you are cool. A disintegrating death beam is a different story. Don't get killed.

You also begin with 3 Power Points, which you can spend to influence rolls. If you spend one actively when you make a post, I'll roll 2 extra dice for you, which means much more chance of success. If you spend them reflexively, which is when you tell me ahead of time that you'll spend one if you get the wrong kind of result on a particular kind of roll, I will re-roll and take the better result. You can spend reflexively to affect rolls made for npc actions involving you, like a guy trying to stab you. Unless you tell me otherwise, I'll assume that you're reflexively spending to counter any natural 20s roleld by your enemies and and natural 1s rolled for you on a reflexived action (like trying to catch the edge if you get pushed off a tower).
Power points are regained when you take a significant break from violence and get rested up.

When you do something, you might describe it in a very awesome way. If that happens, your limit meter will go up. You might also tell me what's dangerous about the action you are taking. That will make your meter go up too, even if you have to make it up ("They have Wands of Fire!") but you will have to deal with the danger if you mess up the roll. Major disasters and threats to your saftey or super dramatic moments can make the meter go up without you needing to do anything at all. Your meter will go back down when you are safe and relatively calm. If it hits 10, you get a limit break. That can be an all powerful finishing move, a use of a special ability you don't normally have, a surge of fighting spirit and a dramatic speech to see you through to the end of a fight. Maybe it does other things too. We'll see.

Character advancement is more plot and drama than system, and the system bits are secret, but they are there in the shadows, ticking away.


Oh, and if you want to do cool stuff, you have to shout henshin first.

Thought it might be good to give you a little more info on what's going on, so here's some stuff that's been happening in the town up until the attack.

Shepham is currently playing host to a circus. This happens occasionally and people always flock to the tent, but nobody trusts travelling folk. They're strangers who find it all to easy to move on unannounced in the night, taking stolen goods and maybe even young runaways with them. They're also a little to close to the wicked fey folk for most people's tastes. Fey are bad news.
The circus has trained animals, acrobats, a truly vile freak show, a bunch of psychics and mystics (who are ignored by the inquistion because they're transparently fake to trained eyes) and some more adult acts that perform in the middle of the night. The tents and caravans are outside the walls, so anybody who's there is in deep trouble.

The town has a sewer system, but it's been out of action for about a hundred years, due to collapses, lack of funds and the place changing hands a few times. Now it's inhabited by sub-humans (or "subs"), who are monstrous beings born from humans. They are pale and freakish wretches, twisted by magic, monstrous heritage, terrible luck or sins in their past lives. They have a culture of ignorance, scavenging and cannibalism and their own strange slang which seems to be different every time they speak. Their bodies tend towards extremes. They either have saggy flesh or bloated, taught skin. They are rough and dry or moist and clammy, obese or skeletal, stunted or spindly, hairy or hairless.

Low Town has most of the small dock and most of the poor people. It's almost all newer buildings that are already falling apart. It's thick with muggers, gangs, drug dealers, rough bars and rougher prostitutes. It's a dirty, nasty place. Perfect for trying to escape from, picking up wonderful new infections, or, if you're an orcish hoard, torching. The vast majority of the residents live here.

High town is older, nicer buildings in wider, brighter streets. There's very little nobility in Shepham, so its residents are more what you'd consider middle class. Successful merchants and their families, people connected with local government of the inquisition and a good third of the raging orc army make up most of it's population. A lot less of it is on fire, but it's only a matter of time. Bars here serve expensive wines that you drink to pretend you can afford them. The prostitutes, gangs and pushers are much less rough and much better hidden.

The inquisition mostly acts as the police force, in lieu of an official one. Some inquisitors are heroic, some are cold and brutal. Plenty retire after their first encounter with real monsters. Those who don't are a little like machines and are very, very hard to kill.

The army aren't near by in significant numbers. The forces of darkness are forever a step ahead, turning up out of the ground, the mountains, the trees and occasionally giant portals, all at a moment's notice. There are less than a hundred soldiers in town, and they would have little chance against orcs if their numbers were even.

Fey are creatures from another world connected to yours. They love art, nature, shiny things and play tricks. Everything about them is beautiful and their very presence has been described as causing an addictive high. They cannot feel guilt and cannot understand the concepts of moral right and wrong or of objective truth. They see people as pets at best, abominations at worse. People who have visited their world say it's like them, only more. People who have been captured and have escaped describe alternating pleasure and agony, degradation without relent and folk dancers. Sooner or later, most try to get back again.

Slavery is a fact of life in your culture. Roughly one in ten people in Shepham is a slave. It's illegal to kill or abandon your slaves, but other than that they don't have any rights. It's socially unacceptable to be too cruel to them unless they actually do something seriously wrong. All slaves have a brand for each owner they've had somewhere on their bodies and are supposed to wear a collar in public. Short slaves with pink clothes and curly white afros are currently in fashion. Usually their owners carry matching handbags.

Wizards and other spellcasters are ritualists. They have no special powers, only secret knowledge. If you want real powers, they have to be god given, granted by the powers of darkness (usually in exchange for your servitude or at the cost of your humanity, sanity or soul), or just be a monster.

There are many secret cults in Shepham. They worship all kinds of things, some of them innocent and just trying to hide from the inquisitors, some of them deeply nasty. None of them are particularly sane. Think Paranoia's secret societies. One of them worships people's feet and another is busy welcoming their orc saviours.

There are a good few monsters passing as human in this town and every other. Everyone knows there are a handful of fey, some vampires, at least one werewolf and several wereducks. They all kill people pretty much constantly, except the fey, who snatch children, young women and anybody who tries to stop them, then take them back to their world.

Random Character Generation Rules

The following optional rules are for the brave only, but also serve as a good guideline to the kind of thing that might work well.

1.) go to theyfightcrime.org where you will be presented with descriptions of two characters. Swap their genders if you wish, then pick one to be your concept trait. The other must be mentioned in your character's background. You may choose whether or not your character fights crime, but if they do not, the other person who must be mentioned in your background does.

2.) Roll a d6. 1-2 gets you Fit, 3-4 gets you Smart, 5-6 gets you Social.

3.) Roll another d6. 1-2 gets you Powerful, 3-4 gets you Resilient, 5-6 gets you Tricky.

4.) Roll yet another d6. 1=fit, 2=smart, 3=social, 4=powerful, 5=resilient, 6=tricky. Re-roll doubles.

5.) Roll a second d6 on the table above to determine your bad attribute trait. Re-roll doubles.

6.) Roll 3d8 and assign one to each of the following tables.
Mental: 1= Academics, 2=Perception, 3=Crafts, 4=Investigation, 5=Medicine, 6=Occult, 7=Politics, 8=Mad Science.
Physical: 1= Athletics, 2=Brawl, 3=Ride, 4=Archery, 5=Larceny, 6=Stealth, 7=Survival, 8=Melee.
Social: 1=Animal Ken, 2=Empathy, 3=Expression, 4=Intimidation, 5=Persuasion, 6=Socialise, 7=Streetwise, 8=Subterfuge.

7.) Roll a d6 to determine which of your skill your specialisation is part of. 1-2=mental, 3-4=physical, 5-6=social. Pick anything within that skill.

8.) Roll a d8 to determine your vice. 1=envy, 2=gluttony, 3=wrath, 4=sloth, 5=greed, 6=lust and 7=pride. Re-roll 8s

9.) Post your character in whatever state of doneness he/she is in. People then PM me power and Achilles' heel ideas. The first workable ones I get are the one you're stuck with. I might add one or or two of my own to hurry things along or round you out and I'll stick in anything that's in the concept trait.

10.) Look at what you're about to play and feel very dirty indeed.